Camille: The Life of Camille Claudel, Rodin's Muse and Mistress (Paperback)

~ (Author), Liliane Emery Tuck (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An older sister of poet, playwrigth and diplomat Paul Claudel, beautiful, talented Camille Claudel (1864-1943), at the age of 20, became mistress, model and collaborator of Auguste Rodin, who admired her sculpture and was influenced by it. When she broke with Rodin, who refused to marry her, she continued to sculpt, paint and exhibit. But in time, living in poverty and semi-obscurity, she destroyed some of her work, her friendships and family ties, and became "nothing more than an anxious shadow hiding in the recesses of her dark studio, asking only for silence and oblivion." In 1913, Paul Claudel had his reclusive, paranoid, now unattractive sister incarcerated, and she remained in sanatoriums for the rest of her life. Interweaving family letters, this brief biography by her grandniece is timed to appear with the opening of an exhibition of her work at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

Product Details

• Paperback: 258 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown & Co (P); 1 edition (September 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559700254
• ISBN-13: 978-1559700252
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,127,822 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Read!, January 16, 2008

By	Kayte - See all my reviews

I purchased this book to write a paper for a sculpture class. I had bought one other but tossed it aside and spent the majority of my time soaked up in this book. It is full of images of Camille's works as well as some images of Camille herself. Aside from the information about her life before, during, and after Rodin, there are also many personal letters to and from Camille that have been translated into English. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and still spend time looking through it even though that sculpture class is history.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Claudel: Rodin's greatest student --, October 31, 2005

By	wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

-- and greatest teacher.

Mme. Paris has written a brief but affectionate, even zealous book on the life and career of Camille Claudel. It summarizes her upbringing in a bougeois but emotionally austere houshold. Perhaps she was never encouraged in her art. At least she was never actively discouraged, and did find some creative kinship in her brother Paul.

Her rise was meteoric. By her twenties, she was producing major work of remarkable expressiveness. Art was a man's world then. With its physical demands of stone and foundry work, sculpture was considered the most masculine among arts. Still, Boucher and then Rodin took her on as student and muse. According to Mme. Paris, Rodin's style owes much to Claudel - perhaps acknowledged in his "Eternal Idol," where the male figure kneels in obeisance and passion before the female.

The passion was real. Claudel lived with Rodin for more than a decade, and it has been claimed that his art stultified when she left him. Rodin remained fond of her until he died, but her leaving may have marked the start of Claudel's tragedy. Her mind gradually turned against itself. Irrational fears took command of her life, and her ability to tend her own needs slowly failed. About age forty, she was committed to an asylum for the insane. She never recovered, and died after more than thirty years of custody. Part of this book reproduces the letters from her years of confinement, and correspondence relating to her care.

The small body of work she left documents that tragedy. There's no sign in it of her illness, but her ouvre shows what she was and hints at what she could have become. Her illness stole her talent, not only from herself, but from the world as well.

//wiredweird